Conventionally, a context-aware service which provides target identification information (hereinafter referred to as identification information) to a thing or a person (hereinafter referred to as a target) freely moving in a wide area, detects the identification information on a network, and uses information around the target as context information is known. In the context-aware service, it is a problem how efficiently the context-aware service identifies a detection position of the target on a network in a large scale network infrastructure (hereinafter referred to as a context distribution mechanism) and collects the context information of the target.
To solve the problem, for example, there is a conventional technique as described below. A context collection device and a management server that manages a detection device that detects identification information are worked together through the identification information of the target, and a list of the identification information of the target is notified to the context collection device. The context collection device selects and extracts context information from the list notified from the management server. Therefore the context collection device need not process a large amount of context information from an irrelevant management server, so that the context collection device can quickly provide the context information.
Patent Document 1: Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2007-287040
However, in the above conventional technique, there is a problem as described below. When using only one context information collection device, which collects tens of thousands to hundreds of millions of identification information items, it is impossible to realize speedy processing even if a high-performance computer device specialized for context information collection processing is used. Hence, distribution of the load of the context information collection device is required.
However, in many cases, the identification information is identification information which is given to a product by a standard-setting organization such as EPC Global used for SCM (Supply Chain Management). Such identification information is temporarily referred at various locations, so that a distribution method such as DNS (Domain Name Service) which is hierarchized and in which load is geographically distributed is effective. The primary objective of the identification information is to manage the product efficiently, and hence the identification information system includes hierarchical semantic information.
Since the identification information is different from network device identification information such as an IP address and an FQDN (Fully Qualified Domain Name), the identification information has no relation to geographic information and network topology.
Therefore, when associating the identification information with the network device identification information to manage them, all network devices to which load is distributed need to have a correspondence relationship between all the identification information items that can be detected on the network and all the network device identification information items of the network devices that refer to the identification information items.
In this case, not only the amount of information of the correspondence relationship is huge, but also the correspondence relationship between all the identification information items and all the network devices needs to be managed synchronously, so that there is a problem that the load of each network device is huge.
Further, since the context information may be referred by a plurality of referrers, some identification information items are associated with identification information of a plurality of network devices located at different positions. Thus there is a problem that paths cannot be aggregated on the network.
To solve the problems as described above and achieve an object, in an aspect of a context information collection management system, a target identification information detection and collection management device, a domain management device, a semantic information system management device, a route management device, and a context information collection management method, a context information collection system is constituted by a global hierarchy in which information including identification information is sorted by referring to a semantic information section of the identification information and a domain hierarchy that is a local hierarchy in which information including identification information is sorted by referring to uniqueness of the identification information in order to detect the identification information from a network, wherein the identification information to identify a person or a thing is constituted by the semantic information section to identify a management domain and a type, and a unique serial number.
In the domain hierarchy, the referrer of the identification information and corresponding context information can obtain the context information including the identification information on the basis of any unique identification information that is registered regardless of the type of the identification information. On the other hand, when referring to information including the identification information over the domain boundary, the context information including the identification information is transmitted to a sorting device of the domain hierarchy which requests a sorting device of the global hierarchy to refer to the information over the domain boundary.